It was prince Kourakin whom he addressed.  That ambassador having just made protestations of the pacific intentions of his master, he interrupted him:  “No,” exclaimed he, “your master desires war; I know, through my generals, that the Russian army is hurrying towards the Niemen!  The emperor Alexander deludes, and gains all my envoys!” Then, perceiving Caulaincourt, he rapidly traversed the hall, and violently appealing to him, said:  “Yes, and you too have become a Russian:  you have been seduced by the emperor Alexander.”  The duke firmly replied, “Yes, sire; because, in this question, I consider him to be a Frenchman.”  Napoleon was silent; but from that moment, he treated that great dignitary coldly, without, however, absolutely repelling him:  several times he even essayed, by fresh arguments, intermixed with familiar caresses, to win him over to his opinion, but ineffectually; he always found him inflexible; ready to serve him, but without approving the nature of the service.

CHAP.  IV.

While Napoleon, prompted by his natural character, by his position, and by circumstances, thus appeared to wish for, and to accelerate the period of conflict, he preserved the secret of his embarrassment.  The year 1811 was wasted in parleys about peace, and preparations for war. 1812 had just begun, and the horizon was already obscured.  Our armies in Spain had given way; Ciudad Rodrigo was taken by the English (on the 19th of January, 1812); the discussions of Napoleon with the Pope increased in bitterness; Kutusof had destroyed the Turkish army on the Danube (on the 8th of December, 1811); France even became alarmed about her means of subsistence; every thing, in short, appeared to divert the attention of Napoleon from Russia; to recall it to France, and fix it there; while he, far from blinding his judgment, recognized in these contrarieties the indications of his ever-faithful fortune.

It was, especially in the midst of those long winter nights, when individuals are left more than usually to their own reflections, that his star seemed to enlighten him with its most brilliant illumination:  it exhibited to him the different ruling genii of the vanquished nations, in silence awaiting the moment for avenging their wrongs; the dangers which he was about to confront, those which he left behind him, even in his own family:  it showed him, that like the returns of his army, the census of the population of his empire was delusive, not so much in respect to its numerical as to its real strength; scarcely any men were included in it but those who were old in years, or worn out in the service, and children—­few men in the prime of life.  Where were they?  The tears of wives, the cries of mothers answered! bowed in sadness to the earth, which, but for them, would remain uncultivated, they cursed the scourge of war as identified in his person.